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Farmers Rely On Off-Farm Income Average Farm Family Gets 16% Of Its Total Income From Farming

From Staff And Wire Reports

American farmers rely heavily on off-farm income to boost their average income to nearly the same level as that for all U.S. households, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture economists.

Farm families’ income from all sources averaged $37,400 in 1991, compared with $37,900 for all U.S. households, said a report in the USDA publication Rural Development Perspectives.

Of the farmers’ average, 16 percent came from farm income and the rest from off-farm sources - wages, salaries, self-employment, interest, dividends and retirement income.

The poorest farm families were those with no off-farm income.

Inland Northwest producers also earn a lot of money off the farm. In a Spokesman-Review survey of nearly 1,000 farmers last summer, 60 percent said they receive off-farm income in the form of investments, a second job or other sources. The most common source of extra income was a working wife, the survey found.

Federal crop subsidy programs remain an important source of income for many farm families, and development of rural economies to support more and better-paying off-farm jobs could help boost farmers’ earnings, the report said.

The report, based on a study by USDA’s Economic Research Service, said the farm families most dependent on off-farm income are those operating farms with less than $50,000 in sales and those specializing in beef, hog, sheep or other livestock production.

Also, nearly 90 percent of elderly farmers’ average household income came from off-farm sources, including Social Security. But this group also had a lower average income - 81 percent of the U.S. average.

Households running full-time commercial farms, with sales of more than $50,000, rely heavily on farm income, the report said, but many of these also still supplement income with off-farm sources.

Federal farm programs do not reach all farmers, and they can have “only limited effect when most farm operator household income comes from off-farm sources,” the report noted.

Off-farm income opportunities could be bolstered through measures that would strengthen local rural economies, “such as using telecommunications to overcome geographic isolation and establishing locally administered revolving loan funds to help businesses,” it said.

, DataTimes